father, and overall badass for his skills in a internet spaceship space spaceship game, but that's how most of us know him." another summed it up, "through the bs media circus, we will know that was vile rat and he was actually way awesome." "the rachel maddow show" begins right now. >> good evening, ezra. you did an awesome job hosting, filling in for ed. thanks. and thanks to you at home for staying with us for the next hour. president obama is scheduled to speak at a campaign event in nevada shortly. you can see there he's being introduced at that event. we're not generally in the business of playing every candidate's stump speech in its entirety every time there is a campaign event with a camera present. if we did that, basically here to november would be a continuous loop of candidates giving the same speech with tiny variations over and over again, every single day. but, but at a time of great international sensitivity, like we are in today, in the wake of the deadly attack on americans

at the u.s. consulate in benghazi, libya, in the last 24 hours, at times like this, frankly all of any president's public appearances have a higher than normal potential to make real news. so we are going to be monitoring the president's campaign speech, and if he makes comments about the protests in libya, we will bring that to you. the president just sat down with an interview with jose diaz balart, the host of telemundo on our sister network. excerpts of this interview are going to air on telemundo tomorrow morning and also ton their nightly news show jose diaz balart at 6:30 p.m. but what we've got right now is exclusive. with you're about to see here has not been seen anywhere until now. this is the president of the united states, giving his first extended response to questions about yesterday's events in benghazi, libya and in cairo, egypt. >> mr. president, for the first

time since 1979, a sitting ambassador, christopher stevens, plus three other americans were killed in the line of duty. we send more than a billion dollars a year to egypt, tens of millions to libya after its liberation. is it time to reconsider foreign aid to countries where many of the people don't want us around? >> well, look, the united states doesn't have an option of withdrawing from the world, and we're the one indispensable nation. countries all around the world look to us for leadership, even countries where sometimes you experience protests. so it's important for us to stay engaged, but, obviously, what happened last night was heartbreaking. and libya in particular is a government that is very friendly towards us. the vast majority of libyans welcomed the united states' involvement. they understand that it's because of us that they got rid

of a dictator who would crush their spirits for 40 years. many libyans came to the defense of our team in benghazi when they were attacked. but, you know, what we have to do now is to do a full investigation, find out the facts, find out who perpetrated these terrible acts, and bring them to justice. >> what does that mean? bring them to justice? what are your options? >> well, our hope is to be able to capture them. but we're going to have to, obviously, cooperate with the libyan government and, you know, i have confidence that we will stay on this relentlessly, because chris stevens, he's somebody who actually advised me and secretary clinton during the original libyan uprising. he was somebody who libyans recognized as being on the side of the people, and we're going to get help. we're going to get cooperation on this.

the broader issue of what's happened in both the middle east and north africa is one where we know that these are new democracies. i mean, in egypt, this is the first democracy in maybe 7,000 years. a true democracy where people had a voice. they don't have traditions of civil society and some of the aspects of our democracy that are so important. and they're going to develop those, and during that time, there are going to be some rocky times. and we have to understand that. but the message we've communicated to the egyptians, the libyans with everybody else is that there are certain values that we insist on, that we believe in, and certainly the security of our people, and protecting diplomats in these countries is something that we expect. and so we're going to continue to look at all aspects of how our embassies are running in those regions. >> would you consider the current egyptian regime an ally of the united states?

>> you know, i don't think that we would consider them an ally, but we don't consider them an enemy. they are a new government that is trying to find its way. they were democratically elected. i think that we are going to have to see how they respond to this incident, how they respond to, for example, maintaining the peace treaty with israel. so far, at least, what we've seen is that in some cases, they've said the right things and taken the right steps. no others, how they've responded to various events may not be aligned with our interests. and so i think it's still a work in progress, but certainly in this situation, what we're going to expect is that they are responsive to our insistence that our embassy is protected, our personnel is protected. and if they take actions that indicate they're not taking those responsibilities, as all other countries do where we have embassies, i think that's going to be a real big problem. >> mr. president, governor

romney today said your foreign policy lacks clarity. representative ryan implied that you're not speaking to the world with force. you said this shouldn't be politicized, but then you kind of reacted to what the governor had said. some say were you not in turn politicizing this whole issue as well? >> well, no, i don't think so. i think my statements have been very clear. tifs asked i was asked directly by steve kroft on "60 minutes" what i thought of these comments and i said this wasn't the time for politics. i have observed that there's a tendency to shoot before you aim, as i pointed out, and that as president, my obligation is to focus on security for our people, making sure that we gather all the facts, making sure that we're advancing american interests. and not having ideological arguments on a day when we are mourning the loss of outstanding

-- outstanding folks who have served our country very well. and, you know, i think at this point, probably, the best thing to do would be to refer to questions about mr. romney's comments to the romney campaign. >> again, that was president obama speaking within the hour with telemundo's jose diaz balart. excerpts will be seen tomorrow, further excerpts of that interview will be aired tomorrow. longer excerpts will air tomorrow at 6:30 p.m. eastern, and the full interview with president obama will air on sunday on telemundo. again, the full interview on sunday. all right. in terms of understanding what happened last night in benghazi, here's one way into it. when osama bin laden was the head of al qaeda, the number two guy in charge was this guy, ayman al zawahiri. that's bin laden on the right-hand side of your screen and al zawahiri on the right. in so doing, he became bin

laden's deputy in al qaeda. so when osama bin laden was killed by navy s.e.a.l.s last may, the man who had been bin laden's second in command for more than a decade in al qaeda, he moved up in al qaeda. and he became al qaeda's new leader. so when the head guy was killed, the deputy moved up to be the new head guy. and when the deputy, al zawahiri became the new head guy, who became the new deputy? that was this guy, al libby. after al zawahiri moved up to replace bin laden. but in june of this year, al libby got dead too. he was killed in june. and it turns out that that might be important to understanding what just happened in libya and why america just had an ambassador murdered in the line of duty for the first time in 33 years.

>> overseas tonight, the u.s. has confirmed the killing with by cia drone strike of another very senior al qaeda leader, and the man killed, abu aya al libby is believed to rank second in the organization and was involved in numerous terrorist plots against western targets over the years. >> u.s. officials are calling the death of al qaeda's top strategist one of the biggest blows to the terror network since the death of osama bin laden. >> it's certainly the most significant hit against al qaeda central there in pakistan, since bin laden's death. the target was al qaeda's number two in command, abu yaya al libby. >> all of that footage from june of this year, okay? the al qaeda deputy who was killed in june used a number of different names. all these guys do. all these guys do, but the alias by which he was best known was abu yaya al libby. the al libya part of that just means the libyan. he was reportedly a citizen of libya. and when he was killed on june 5th, a libyan extremist group, on june 6th, the very next day,

launched attacks in the city of benghazi that they said were retaliation for al libby being killed. the video this group released online claimed credit for those attacks, to say they were avenging the death of al libby. the video included shots of explosions near the american consulate in benghazi, the same consulate where the ambassador and three other american officials were attacked and then killed last night. but that attack, revenge for the killing of al libby, that one happened in june. now, that was june. yesterday, of course, was the anniversary of 9/11, when al qaeda attacks killed 3,000 americans in 2001. since the 9/11 attacks, al qaeda has frequently timed statements and provocations, if not actual new attacks, to coincide with the yearly 9/11 anniversaries. and this year, here's how al qaeda marked 9/11. it's a video by al zawahiri, the guy who's in charge of al qaeda since bin laden died. this video is a commemoration

video of the death of al a libby, the death of the guy who the u.s. killed back in june. the video released yesterday is roughly 42 minutes long. it's labeled as a statement on the martyrdom of the lion of libya. and it calls for al qaeda followers to take revenge for al libby being killed by the united states back in june. that video came out yesterday. last night in benghazi, where a militant libyan group had launched previous attacks, including an ied attack on the u.s. consulate to avenge the death of al libi when al libi died, last night that same attack was attacked again. that ultimately resulted in the gutting of the consulate and the death of the u.s. ambassador to libya and of three other americans. now, hard intelligence on what exactly happened is as yet hard to come by, but the picture that is emerging is of a smallish, but basically peaceful protest in benghazi, a protest over an anti-muslim video.

the same video that sparked protests in egypt and elsewhere in the muslim world over the last day or so. but that protest was quickly joined and then supplanted by a well-armed, organized group of fighters that arrived all at once in pickup trucks and who then launched essentially a military assault on the u.s. consulate. a group that's being described as a sort of umbrella group for islamist militants in the area is claiming pseudo responsibility for the attack. but they're also trying to describe it as a popular uprising. it does not appear to have been much of a popular uprising. similar and possibly overlapping militant groups also claimed credit for a firebombing in benghazi in april that targeted the head of the u.n. mission in libya. they also claimed credit for a firebombing in may that targeted the red cross office in benghazi. they also claimed credit for that attack on june 6th that the u.s. consulate in benghazi, the ied attack, that ended up in that video. they also claimed credit nor an attack less than a week later on

the british envoy to libya, the british one. that attack also taking place in benghazi. and then a week after that, islamist militants attacked another consulate in benghazi, the consulate of tunisia. so, yes, there is that video, this crude, anti-muslim video which is the latest anti-muslim provocation causing protests and riots around the world. we will talk more about that later. but what happened last night in libya does not seem to be the spontaneous outburst of a crowd that had its sensitivities offended by religious provocation. it does not seem to have been that kind of violence, at least at this early date. that angry religious mob phenomenon is part of the relevant context for understanding how an american ambassador was killed last night. but it may also be just as relevant to put it in context, put it in the context of other terrorist attacks, organized terrorist attack on other u.s. embassies, like in kenya and tanzania in 1998. obviously, this is not on the same scale, but this may have been the same kind of target.

you saw the president and the vice president today sort of implicitly prepping the country for the possibility that this wasn't just an incident of mob violence, but rather an organized terrorist attack, when both the president and vice president gave statements today about benghazi, in which they said the u.s. not only mourns this loss and is angered by this loss, but that the united states intends to get justice here. >> no acts of terror will ever shake the resolve of this great nation, alter that character, or eclipse the light of the values that we stand for. today, we mourn for more americans who represent the very best of the united states of america. we will not waiver in our commitment to see that justice is done for this terrible act and make no mistake, justice will be done. >> let me be clear. we are resolved to bring to justice their killers. >> amen! >> and we will work, we will work with the libyan government and our other partners to do

just that. there is no place in the civilized world for senseless murder like has occurred last night. >> although the u.s. government is not saying definitively that this was an organized terrorist attack and not just an incident of mob violence gone horribly over the top, those kinds of statements that you saw right there from the president and the vice president in terms of bringing the perpetrators to justice are rarely the sorts of things you hear when they are talking about just mob violence. in terms of what the u.s. thinks justice looks like here and how they are moving forward, the first step was to deploy a detachment of about 50 u.s. marines. these marines are part of a rapid reaction force that's prepared to move on very short notice to trouble spots around the world. they will bolster security at the u.s. embassy in tripoli, which is where we're told u.s. personnel in libya have been moved to. there are also u.s. drones flying over libya. the u.s. government says they

will be used to identify militant targets. they say these are surveillance drones, not shooting drones, so any targeting information they turn up will be handed over to the libyan authorities to act on. also, not incidentally, what, there go two u.s. navy destroyers. two guided missile destroyers, the laboon and the mcfall to be positioned off the libyan coast. the primary weapons on these destroyers are tomahawk cruise missiles. this is obviously a lot of big news tonight, but our coverage of the attack on the u.s. consulate in benghazi, libya, continues, including right after this break, when we are going to be joined live from egypt by nbc's chief foreign correspondent, richard engel. please stay with us. nouncer ] how do you define your moment? the blissful pause just before that rich sweetness touches your lips. the delightful discovery, the mid-sweetening realization that you have the house all to yourself. well, almost. the sweet reward, making a delicious choice that's also a smart choice.

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nbc's richard engel is going to be joining us live from cairo next. we're looking at images right now as we're going to him of crowds gathering in the streets outside the u.s. embassy in cairo again. we'll be joined by richard live from cairo in just a moment.

today, many americans are asking, indeed, i asked myself, how could this happen? how could this happen in a country we helped liberate in a city we helped save from destruction? this question reflects just how complicated and at times how confounding the world can be. but we must be clear-eyed, even in our grief. this was an attack by a small and savage group, not the people

or government of libya. >> secretary of state hillary clinton today, pledging that the attack on the u.s. consulate in benghazi would not be the end of america's relationship with libya. she also described that as a concerted attack by a small group, not something representative of libya as a nation. joining us now live from cairo in egypt is richard engel, nbc's chief foreign correspondent, who i'm hoping will forgive me for keeping him up once again into another very, very late night. thanks, richard. >> reporter: no, it's my pleasure. and this is an important night. and by the way, i think she's right. the people in libya are overwhelmingly pro-american. they are overwhelming supportive of the u.s. mission. they actually went out and protested today in favor of the united states and had a big "i'm sorry" rally. but the problem is, no one is really in charge of libya, even

now, there are many militia groups, there are many, we call them, al qaeda groups. some of them are truly al qaeda, like the followers of abu yahya al libi, and some of them are not really al qaeda, but they follow the same ideology. and there are hundreds of these groups, and they are still armed and they are still able to carry out these kind of attacks. and one of these groups, which the u.s. is now hunting for, with drones, and with libyan support, was responsible for carrying out this attack. not like the incident as you rightly pointed out, that is still ongoing here in egypt, by the way. >> well, let me ask you about, in terms of what's ongoing in egypt. we have seen images tonight, live images tonight of crowds in the street, outside the cairo embassy. from what you know happened there yesterday, are you anticipating that these might escalate even from what we have already seen? can you tell us what's going on right now in cairo and what it feels like there? >> reporter: i don't get the feeling that you're going to have more egyptians try and climb over the fence and claim

over the wall into the u.s. embassy. what you saw tonight were egyptian security forces trying to push back demonstrators and to try and put up a defensive barrier, some barbed wire around the perimeter of the u.s. embassy. they threw some tear gas in, the demonstrators came back, they threw stones, and then the egyptian government effectively gave up and is allowing them to stay closish. and this is the battle that the egyptian government is trying to do. it wants to sort of butter both sides of the bread here. it wants to keep the u.s. happy and listen to what president obama was saying in that speech, which i found very interesting, by the way. we'll talk about that more in a minute. saying egypt better be serious about protecting our diplomats, so egypt did dispatch forces and did try to push people away. but this is a new islamic, or islamist, to use that term that is often used, government.

mohammed morsi from the muslim brotherhood, his heart and his politics are with the people who are on the street, with the crowds who are offended by this ridiculous video that was posted online. in fact, already today, morsi, the president, asked the u.s. embassy in washington to file a lawsuit in egypt's name against the director of this ridiculous movie. so he, in his heart of hearts, is against the movie, which i can understand, and is trying to play that populist card a little bit. so he doesn't want to crush these demonstrations too much. and i think that's why we haven't seen him come out, make any statements, go on television and say what happened was wrong, because i'm not sure if he thinks what happened was entirely wrong. >> if he did go out and do that, would it have an effect on those protesters, do you think? does he hold enough sway with the hearts of the people who are in those streets right now that he could affect what they do?

>> reporter: he doesn't want to go out and say, what you're doing is wrong, because the people who are out on the street think they're out on the street defending with their bodies and with stones and their ability to climb over walls the reputation of the muslim prophet muhammad. and he's not going to go out on television and say what you're doing is wrong. i think that would be too much of a risk for him. i think that would go against his moral structure, because this is the kind of guy who before he became president, would likely have been out doing this kind of demonstration. and although his party, the muslim brotherhood, has called for more demonstrations on friday. >> richard, last question on the issue, in terms of the u.s. security response here. we're seeing a fast team of marines, at 50 marines being deployed to go guard the u.s. embassy in tripoli, the capital of libya. we've seen them discussing the fact that there are drones in libya, although we don't necessarily believe that the drones ever left libya in their

surveillance role after the toppling of gadhafi. do you think in egypt it's possible that the u.s. has to consider fortifying security around the embassy with further marines there? and do you think that what's being sent to libya may actually end up in something looking like a military engagement there, of any kind, or do you think that's essentially going to stay a defensive posture? >> reporter: i think there's already types of of special operations going on in libya, in mali, where al qaeda has operated. there was great concern in the military community that all of this libyan weaponry suddenly disappeared as gadhafi's regime collapsed. so i know the military has been very concerned about this, concerned about the numerous militant factions. if you remember, when we covered the libyan revolution, there was all this weaponry, these rpgs, the armories that were being looted. well, when the regime fell, a

lot of that weaponry just disappeared. and the rebels never disarmed. there was no weapons collection program, so the country stayed military militaryized, if you will. and there's a central government that tries to organize picking up the trash, but there are still all of these factions. and some of these factions are very hard line, and one of them decided to take on the consulate and burn it down and kill the u.s. ambassador. and i think now the u.s. is trying to look for them, certainly. they'll have more marines on the ground as a temporary fix to protect the extra personnel crammed into the embassy in tripoli, and they're going to be using the other factions, who are clearly embarrassed by what happened and don't like these hard line militants to find them. i think their success rate will probably be pretty good, if they have eyes in the air and they have a lot of goodwill on the ground from other groups. ing b

egypt, i don't know if they can necessarily or would need to necessarily reinforce the embassy here. it is like a castlist e itself. egypt has plenty of men in uniform that it could send. the question, and i think what was most surprising about that interview with telemundo, was when the president said that he's not sure if egypt anymore is an ally. he said it's certainly not an enemy. that is so different under mubarak when egypt was the cornerstone of u.s. relations with the arab world. >> richard engel, nbc's chief foreign correspondent. thank you for your time, once again. i feel both guilty for keeping you up, and cognizant of the fact that while i'm keeping you up, the thing that you're reporting on is happening live in the place where you are. you have a tough job, man. stay safe. thank you for being with us. thank you, richard. contrary to well-established expectations, republican presidential nominee, mitt romney, made this international

crisis into a campaign issue. and probably not in the way he expected to. the surprisingly political part of this story is coming up next.

and then there was republican presidential nominee mitt romney's response to the attacks in benghazi and the protests in cairo. the consensus on the left and on the right and in the beltway is that mr. romney either blundered this really, really badly or he is playing some heretofore unknown ultramaster level of political chess that we just don't understand yet. which do you think it is? that's coming up.

it was this week four years ago, it was this week during the last presidential campaign where the home stretch of that campaign had a very clear beginning. it was almost four years ago today, in fact, that the financial giant lehman brothers suddenly collapsed. by september 2008, the financial collapse in this country was pretty much in full gear and it really changed the presidential election. republican presidential nominee john mccain took the bold step of suspending his campaign in order to head back to d.c. to work on the crisis. the mccain campaign tried to sell that decision as a country-first, patriotic,

bigger-than-politics kind of move, but john mccain ultimately did not really have anything of substance to say about the financial crisis when he got back to washington. he did not seem to contribute mine meaningfully to any proposed solution. and for him to suspend his campaign to go back and essentially being seen sitting mutely in rooms where things were being decided without him smacked of political desperation and it was downhill for his campaign from there until the end. not like there was no suspense on election night, but somewhere between this time four years ago and election night, it just started to feel lick ke it was over for john mccain. and never more so when republican foreign policy stalwart colin powell went on mete the press and officially endorsed barack obama over the man from his own party. >> i think he is a transformational figure. he is a new generation coming into the world -- on to the world stage, on to the american stage, and for that reason, i'll

be voting for senator barack obama. >> that endorsement from colin powell was sort of the nail in the coffin for john mccain's presidential campaign. now, that endorsement, it should be said, appears to be on the bubble for mitt romney's campaign this time around. and it appears to be on that bubble in large part because of foreign policy, because of a stream of intemperate statements that mr. romney has made on foreign policy. at least statements that were seen as intemperate. this is what mitt romney said back in january about his strategy, for example, towards russia. >> this is, without question, our number one geopolitical foe. they fight every cause for the world's worst actors. >> russia, our number one geopolitical foe. that comment, as well as the foreign policy advisers that mr. romney surrounded himself with, ultimately drew this rue ebuke from colin powell. watch. >> i don't know who all of his advisers are, but i've seen some of the names and some of them are quite far to the right, and sometimes they, i think, might

be in a position to make judgments or recommendations to the candidate that should get a second thought. for example, when governor romney not too long ago said, you know, the russian federation is our number one geostrategic threat. well, come on, mitt -- think, that isn't is case. >> come on, mitt, think. mr. romney's sort of half-cocked remarks about russia being our number one geopolitical foe have been criticized by great effect by democrats, but have caused him a lot of trouble within his own party as well. it happened on this issue of russia. it also happened on the issue of china. you may remember mr. romney running up against the issue of the blind dissident in china who was ordered to remain under house arrest by the chinese government and who sought help from u.s. officials in china. while u.s. officials were engaged in intense and very delicate negotiations over chen's fate, mitt romney took to the campaign trail in order to attack the obama

administration's handling of the situation. he based his attack solely on minute-by-minute reports that were coming out of china at the time the crisis was still ongoing. >> it's also apparent, according to these reports, if they're accurate, that our embassy failed to put in place the kind of verifiable measures that would assure the safety of mr. chen and his family. if these reports are true, this is a dark day for freedom. and it's a day of shame for the obama administration. we are a place of freedom, here and around the world, and we should stand up and defend freedom wherever it is under attack. >> a dark day, a day of shame, he said. mr. romney made those remarks at about 2:00 in the afternoon on may 3rd. and they drew an almost immediate rebuke from even staunch conservatives, like, for example, bill kristol, that very same afternoon. >> i mean, i'm happy to be critical of the obama administration, as anyone is, but i think this is an awfully fast-moving story, and if i was advising governor romney, i

would say, you don't need to get in the middle of this story. to inject yourself in the middle of it, when there were all kinds of negotiations going on, and a fast-moving story, i think it's foolish. there's no reason to inject yourself in and say it's a day of shame for the obama administration. hillary clinton's waking up right now. let's see if she can pull this off in the next 12 hours or not. >> turns out secretary clinton was able to pull it off. just eight hours after mitt romney declared a day of shame for the obama administration, u.s. officials who were working on the problem at the time announced that they had reached an agreement with china that would allow chen to travel to the united states. mr. romney's half-cocked handling of that situation was an embarrassment for him and his campaign, and earned him some rather alarmed criticism, even from conservatives at this time. and now mr. romney has popped off once again. late last night, while the u.s. diplomatic missions in egypt and libya were still under physical attack, the romney campaign, during those attacks, released an statement to the press, not

only attacking president obama, but attacking u.s. diplomatic personnel in the places that were being attacked for their handling of the ongoing situations there. mr. romney's statement read in part, "it's disgraceful that the obama administration's first response was not to condemn attacks on our diplomatic missions, but to sympathize with those who waged attacks." well, mr. romney was preferably referring to there was this statement that was put out by the u.s. embassy in cairo. it was a statement that acknowledged a crude, anti-islamic video that had been produced in the united states. that statement that mr. romney described as sympathizing with the attackers was put out a full six hours before the attackers breached the embassy walls. it was a statement that was an attempt to tamp down any reaction to this stupid video. it wasn't a reaction to the protests, the protests didn't exist yet. mr. romney urged calm, and used it as an opportunity to accuse the president of the united states of sympathizing with

those who were at that time attacking the united states. by early this morning, after it became clear that a u.s. ambassador named christopher stevens had been killed in libya, after it became clear that mr. romney's timeline of events in egypt was completely wrong, the republican presidential nominee took to the podium and he did not walk back his initial remarks. he decided to double down on them. >> the statement that came from the administration and the , and the embassy is the administration, the statement that came from the administration was a statement which is akin to apology, and i think was a severe miscalculation. the statements were inappropriate. and in my view, a disgraceful statement on the part of our administration to apologize for american values. >> "a part of the u.s. government was under attack." mitt romney responded while the attack was still going on, to

attack that same part of the u.s. government. called the actions of embassy personnel in egypt, "disgrace "disgraceful." just like in previous situations, some of the harshest criticism of mr. romney has been coming from his own side, from fellow republicans. former reagan speechwriter peggy noonan telling fox news today, sometimes today when really bad things happen, when hot things happen, cool words or no words is the way to go. mark salter described mr. romney's comments today as unfair and hyperbolic, as well as unseemly in its timing. one senior republican foreign policy adviser telling buzz feed today, they were just trying to score a cheap news cycle hit based on the embassy statement and now it's just completely blown up. it's an utter disaster. another republican telling buzz feed, quote, they're incompetent at talking effectively about foreign policy. this is just unbelievable. those are the republicans. to give you a sense of the magnitude of this as a screwup, even must generic mainstream journalists and commentators who

are not plainly for mitt romney or against him, people who aren't on one side or the other, people whose job it is to observe and therefore in some ways create the norms of politics, even they were shocked by how far this was outside what is considered to be responsible by anyone who wants to be taken seriously in american politics, let alone anyone who wants to be considered for a job as serious as the president of the united states. nbc's chuck todd said that he was stunned that the romney campaign reacted the way that he did. he described the campaign's actions as irresponsible. nbc's jake tapper said that mr. romney's criticism, quote, does not stand up to simple chronology. ron fournier described mr. romney's response as "ham-handed and inaccurate." mark halperin described it as one of the most craven and ill-advised tactical moves in this entire campaign. "the washington post" editorial board describing mr. romney's reaction as, quote, a discredit to his campaign.

republicans in position of leadership, most republicans in congress, did not react today the same way that mitt romney did to this crisis. statements from republicans like john boehner and mitch mcconnell, mostly hued to the sort of basically decent idea that when america is attacked, you don't pile on right that second while the attack is still happening. you issue sober statements of concern and anger over the attacks, you offer your prayers for the families of those affected, and you reiterate america's resolve in the face of this difficulty. and that was exactly the reaction today from most responsible republicans. and that fact further shone a spotlight on how shockingly different mr. romney's statements were. they were talking points that the romney campaign circulated today in other republicans in an effort to get other republicans to try to sound more like mitt romney, to start talking about this crisis more in the way that he did. will he be able to drag the rest of the republican party into his way of seeing this? more on that with nbc's andrea mitchell, ahead. i'm only in my 60's...

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nbc's chief foreign affairs correspondent is andrea mitchell and she joins us next on this very major "newsday." plus, we've got once again, the news that president obama made tonight in his interview with telemundo. we've got the president making big news on the issue of egypt. stay with us. who are you, really? country? rocker? glam? take off that mask and see! clean makeup won't fake up... won't clog your pores so it lets your skin breathe. it lets you be you! flawlessly. clean makeup. from easy breezy beautiful. covergirl. like a squirrel stashes nuts, you may be muddling through allergies. try zyrtec® liquid gels. nothing starts working faster than zyrtec® at relieving your allergy symptoms for 24 hours.

simply put, having an embassy which is, has been breached and has protesters on its ground, having violated the sovereignty of the united states, having that embassy reiterate a statement,

effectively apologizing for the right of free speech, is not the right course for an administration. is not the right course for an administration. >> governor romney has in a very unwise way injected himself into a situation where he clearly doesn't have all the facts. in no way, shape or form is the u.s. government or the obama administration apologizing for terrorists or sympathizing with them. i was a foreign service office myself for 27 years. i served in both republican and democratic administrations and i think it's really important that we not play politics with this. >> strong words there from nicholas burns in response to mitt romney this afternoon. mr. burns in that place where you saw him there, was being interviewed by my next guess. andrea mitchell, was so rifting it was time stopped. thank you for being here. >> it's been a long day but it's such an interesting day because it was revealing.

it was one of those moments where the character and the policy were both revealed. it was very transparent. >> let me ask you about the timing here, as far as i understand it, roughly this time last night, you were trying to get get confirmation. ags you know we were trying to get confirmation. the state department was telling

inartfully trying to put out a statement, very routine to put out a statement like that to try to appeal to the more radical segments to tell them to be quiet and not protest. and that became the apology. and then when we really went back and checked over the last hours and all day and all morning, it turns out that that statement from cairo, was first

issued six hours before the protest. so it was preemptive. it had nothing to do with responding to it. and certainly it would be very strange to put it at the feet of the president of the united states. this is a press officer in an embassy run by one of the most veteran dim plomats. and she wasn't even in the country, not responsible. she was on home leave. >> andrea, obviously the romney campaign has a lod of veteran political advisers. mitt romney hasn't served in any capacity that would give him experience. but he's been advised by a campaign that has a lot of old hands. that's why this seems surprising to me. i don't know whether to see this as an attempt at political boldness or aggression or whether this was something screwed up. whether this was a product of in inexperience day.

what do you think? >> a couple of cross currents here. first of all, it came right after laura ingraham, rush limbaugh and others had criticized him for being too weak and not being aggressive enough. so i think they were looking for an opportunity. they certainly had to be defensive for having failed to mention afghanistan in their convention speech and they had been trying to defend themselves against that attack on foreign policy, so perhaps that weighed into it. but there's also something in the air here. a minute does not pass where either campaign, both campaigns, aren't putting out a press release on something or another. it's not just the social media. it's, you know, old fashioned press releases. and combative and it's bang, bang, push, shove. one side, the other side, both guilty of this.

and this is a serious business and this is not tt stuff of combative political press releases. and i can't recall, rachel, i don't think you can, another time when the united states was under fire, literally, where a presidential candidate in either party put out a press release. the normal response would be do nothing or say we have one president at a time there will be plenty of time later on to respond. >> andrea mitchell. a woman of invaluable perspective on nights like this. thank you. i really appreciate it. we'll have more on our top story in a moment. and the news that president obama made an exclusive interview tonight. you saw the tape at the beginning of the hour. we'll be back with that. stay with us. ♪ ♪

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just before we came on the air tonight, president obama sat down with telemundo. more of the interview is going to air tomorrow on telemundo's morning show as well as their nightly news program. but we were able to airport of this interview exclusively tonight and the president has made some news here. listen. >> would you consider the current egyptian regime an ally of the united states? >> i don't think that we would consider them an ally. but we don't consider them an enemy. they are a new government that is trying to find its way. >> we wouldn't consider them an ally, he said, but we don't consider them an enemy. in diplomacy at the presidential level words like that are chosen very carefully and they represent news.